This US Navy Submarine Was At Sea For A Historic 727 Days

In August 2022, the USS Florida, a nuclear guided-missile submarine, deployed for one of the longest submarine patrols in U.S. Navy history. It returned to its homeport in July 2024, amounting to a 727-day deployment. If you know anything about submarines, then you know that nuclear submarines can stay out at sea for a considerable time, so it shouldn't be too surprising that this was possible. However, it is a rare event. The true show of accomplishment here was that USS Florida conducted missions within the 5th, 6th, and 7th fleet areas of operation, traversing multiple oceans, including the Pacific.

As Capt. Peter French, blue crew commanding officer, said (via the Navy), "It's very uncommon for East Coast submarines to deploy to the west coast, but we managed to do an exceptional job completing the mission." For the uninitiated, this doesn't mean the submarine and its crew worked for 727 days straight without any kind of break. It simply means that the submarine didn't return to its home port — Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia — until its planned deployment was concluded.

During this extended deployment, the USS Florida routinely pulled into ports all around the world, including Greece, Guam, Diego Garcia, and the U.K., to replenish supplies and swap out crews. U.S. nuclear subs typically alternate between two crews, blue and gold, with each crew deploying for roughly 77 days at a time. Throughout the 727 days, 60,000 nautical miles the USS Florida traveled, it swapped out crews a total of five times.

The 560-foot USS Florida is an Ohio-class nuclear submarine that started its service as a ballistic missile submarine in 1983. However, after it had conducted 61 successful patrols as a boomer in 2003, it docked in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard to receive a refueling and conversion, going from an SSBN to a guided-missile submarine (SSGN). It was redesignated from SSBN-728 to SSGN-728. Where SSBNs specialize in launching tactical ballistic missiles that serve as an arm of America's nuclear triad, SSGNs are better suited to support Combatant Commanders and Special Operations Forces like the Navy SEALs and Marine Force Recon.

The USS Florida has four torpedo tubes it can use against rival surface ships and submarines, but its crème de la crème is the 154 Tomahawk missiles it holds in its 22 missile tubes. The current iteration of these missiles has a range of 1,000 miles, letting SSGNs strike a land target well away from the coast. Besides just missiles, the Florida can accommodate as many as 66 special forces operators, on top of its 15 officers, and 150 enlisted. It can transport them to most any destination around the world and deploying them through one or both of the lock-out chambers that were once missile tubes.

Special operators can also enter the sub through these chambers, so the sub doesn't have to surface and give away its position. There are only four SSGNs in the U.S. Navy, but they're vital to its strategy around the globe.